Pros and cons of US excluding Iraq from the National Security Strategy

Shafaq News – Washington

Once a central focus of US Middle East security strategies, Iraq was notably absent from the latest National Security Strategy released by the administration of President Donald Trump.

Safwan Al-Amin, non-resident fellow in the Iraq program at the Atlantic Council, said this factor “reflects several things.”

Speaking to Shafaq News, he noted that the first reflection is that “Iraq is clearly not on the administration’s priority list in the region.” So far, he added, “the opportunities that Iraq presents for the US have not been well-defined.”

But more positively, he noticed that this “also shows that Iraq no longer presents a significant threat to US interests in the region, to the point where it needed to be added to the NSS.”

Al-Amin noted that “the administration’s apportionments that would be responsible for coordinating and making policy in relation to Iraq have been delayed, and the team is just beginning to take shape now.”

The administration of US President Donald Trump has unveiled its 2025 National Security Strategy, outlining the foreign-policy and defense priorities that will guide Washington in the coming years.

Branded under the slogan “America First,” the document not only declares an end to the era of military interventions and regime-change campaigns, but also introduces an entirely new framework for the Middle East.

For Shafaq News, Mostafa Hashem, Washington D.C.